John Walker lauded my musical taste when he heard The Mountain Goats coming out of my speakers a few weeks ago, but in fact it was not my doing. Soma FM’s consistently excellent Indie Pop Rocks (But College Rock Sucks) station was choosing my music at the time. I’m ashamed to say that I hadn’t even noticed that a particularly good song was playing, such is the usual standard. But I have now investigated, after he enthused so keenly, and lo, they are le awesome.

Rainy – before you ask – wistful, impossibly pretty acoustic indie folk, is how I would crudely characterise it. It made me think of Molasses and Neutral Milk Hotel, but they have all the earnest charm and arcane lyrics of The Decemberists and when they get silly, as they do on Dance Music, it’s as much fun as when Jeffrey Lewis does. If you don’t know who any of those people are, you might not like them. But since you can get an MP3 right here, you don’t have to risk it. And if you do like it, check out all those other people. The linked track, You Or Your Memory, is one of the softest, but firmly a grower and my current favourite. Hast Thou Considered The Tetrapod is a close second.

I’m basing all this on their latest, The Sunset Tree, since that’s all I know. That’s what you should get, by your preferred method, and listen to immediately. I haven’t found myself so absorbed by the atmosphere of an album since discovering the Ugly Casanova one a few Christmasses ago. It’s one to get lost in.

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The Sunset tree is his first autobiographical album, which makes it all the more harrowing when it's harrowing, and all the more hopeful when it's optimistic.

Normally, and he earns the word with his nine million albums, he invents a group of characters and then writes an album telling stories about their lives. Also, The Sunset Tree is the third studio recorded album on 4AD. Go back before that, and you should, and they're all recorded on cassette.

John: Very nice site!

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